


Definitions

by icarus_chained



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst and Humor, Bureaucracy, Civil War, Fantasy, Gen, Historical Fantasy, Politics, Revolution, Spies & Secret Agents, Swords, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2013-10-14
Packaged: 2017-12-29 10:41:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1004433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rebel leader and his commander at arms consider two new arrivals to their camp, as well as certain questions of definitions.</p><p>Tiny little original scraplet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Definitions

“Something wrong, my friend?” Damwar stepped up to the balustrade, next to his commander at arms. Arnust looked up at him, wryly. For about a second, before turning back to the courtyard, and the pair of figures going through the slow, drifting motions of form practice. 

“Hnh. I don’t trust them. Those two. I don’t like it.”

Damwar blinked. “You doubt their story?” he asked, mildly, looking down on the pair himself. The woman, stern and cold, guiding her partner through the forms. And the man, still almost vanishingly frail, haltingly but determinedly echoing her. “Because at least one of them bears the scars to back it.”

Arnust spat. “Hah. Yes. And _that’s_ the one I don’t trust.” He frowned down at the man, squinting suspiciously.

Damwar very carefully did not smile. Poor payment it would have been, for all the times Arnust had been right. “Oh?”

“Story doesn’t add up,” his commander said shortly. His idea of an explanation. Damwar often wondered if he should sit the man down, perhaps explain the concept of elaboration. Or, he could just do what he always did, which was asking prodding questions until he drew the story out. 

And in that cause … “You don’t think he was what he says he was, then?” he pondered, glancing sideways. “You don’t think he was a diplomat’s aide, before the …” he smiled a little, somewhat darkly, “the current regime change?”

Arnust shot him a look that spoke volumes. “If you mean, do I think he was a paper-pusher, then yes, I’ll grant you that. Man has a definite bureaucratic streak. Inventories haven’t run this smoothly in … ever.” He spat sideways. Respect. Something which, almost without fail, made Arnust suspicious of himself. “Can’t move a thing, without at least three people knowing about it.”

Damwar did smile a little, there. “That’s good, no? Spreading the load, making sure no one person can slip past.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Arnust growled. “But that’s the problem. You’ve got to have a sneaky turn of mind, to think of that. You’ve got to be _suspicious_.”

Which Arnust prided himself on being. Damwar wondered, just a little, if his commander wasn’t a little jealous that someone else was apparently near as paranoid as he.

“And it’s not just the inventories,” Arnust went on, glaring daggers at the oblivious figure beneath them. “Can’t prove anything. Can’t pin him down, the little bastard. But he’s been seen by just about every watch we’ve got.”

Damwar stiffened, at that. Frowned. “What do you mean?”

Arnust shot him a disgruntled look. Oh, _now_ you listen? “I mean, it’s never the same people, never the same guards, but every shift, every watch, every location, someone on them sees him. Never doing anything. Passing through. Taking a fucking piss. Not lingering, not watching. Nothing suspicious at all. Except for the fact they’ve all seen him.”

Damwar frowned. “What do you think it means?”

Arnust chewed his cheek absently, resting his arms on the balustrade to look down at the new pair. “Maybe nothing. But I’m pretty sure he knows all our watch patterns. I’m pretty sure he knows who goes out, and when, even if he doesn’t know why. And he’s got the inventories. He knows how many of us there are, what we use, how we use it. And since he arrived here because he successfully noticed the light signalling on our watch-towers, if he hasn’t tried to squirrel his way around to figuring out our codes, I’m going to be _very_ surprised.” 

Damwar turned his gaze from Arnust, down into the courtyard. Feeling a slow frisson of danger in his spine, a faint stirring of instinct. Beneath them, the man still had not noticed them, still didn’t look their way. All his focus was on his movements, on his partner, on building back up the muscles and strength wasted by long captivity. And the woman, too, never looked their way. He thought she knew they were there, thought she knew with a warrior’s instinct that she was being watched, but they were not her focus, no more than her companion's. She was bent to her partner, guiding him with single-minded determination. 

Damwar wasn’t sure if it was because she sought distraction, or because he had aided her in coming here, or because they had fought together, or because they had arrived as companions, alone among potential enemies. But for a woman who had come here for vengeance, for a woman who had not known the man at her side for more than a few weeks longer than Damwar himself, she had grown quite protective, quite quickly.

“Do you think they mean to act against us?” he asked quietly. In that, before anything else, he trusted Arnust’s instincts. Point of pride it may have been, but Arnust had never yet been wrong, either for or against.

Arnust frowned angrily, chewing thoughtfully on his cheek. Damwar blinked, realising that Arnust was honestly confused. 

“I don’t know,” his commander said at last. Then grunted, temper and possibly disappointment. “No. Alright. No. It’s not … not _active_. He’s not doing it with intent, I think. It’s just habit for ‘im. Just _instinct_ , maybe.”

Damwar bit his lip against a smile. “Like you, you mean?” he asked, carefully blank, and grinned into the disgruntled flash of teeth.

“No, _not_ like me. Did I not just _say_ he was a paper-pusher? Man couldn’t fight his way out of a wet sheet, without her help.” Arnust grunted disdainfully. “And it’s not just the weakness. He doesn’t know the forms. He never knew them. If that man was ever a fighter, I’ll eat my sword.”

Damwar blinked. “Then … why do you think he’s lying? Maybe he _was_ just a diplomat’s aide, and the recent unpleasantness just made him that little bit more …” Just in time, he kept himself from saying ‘paranoid’. “Careful?”

Arnust growled, turning to look at him like he was a babe in arms, and a blithering idiot besides. “Diplomat’s aide, my arse! If that man was anything, he was a _spy_!”

And at that, Damwar couldn’t quite contain himself. Couldn’t quite stop the broad grin, or the faint sparkle of amusement in his eyes.

“... _What?_ ” Arnust growled, glaring at him. “Damwar. _What_?”

“It’s nothing,” Damwar demurred, twitching a hand lightly. “Nothing, Arnust. Only … I thought that was the _definition_ , of a diplomat’s aide?”


End file.
